The subjective element in evaluating hardware, or: Mindful hearing versus mindless hearing. - Page 3

Quote:

Originally Posted by melomaniac 

.... what I'm after as a listener is not the true (righteously angry, drug-addled, nicotine-stained, wretched) state of mind of this or that guitar hero, say, but the most pleasing, most engaging sound one can coax out of imperfect equipment that is fed the inherently limited storage media available at any given time.....

@ Mavrickronin:  I listen to music first and foremost as well.  That's why I don't like being termed an "audiophile"......

Maybe we need to define audiophile better.  To me it's the desire to hear and listen to the clearest, cleanest, most transparent rendition that i can obtain......

Audiophiles can exist at every monetary level of our hobby. 

Wouldn't you say that a person who is listening to internet radio from his laptop's headphone out and chooses a channel with a bitrate of 320 over one with 128, (because it sounds better) is an audiophile.

USG

Quote:

Originally Posted by f.duane 

Look, I'm not arguing against objective measurement of the hardware - I'm saying that relying on that alone misses the point. Unless, of course, one is into some number fetishism. If the point is to get a particular listening experience, then we have to take into account the humongous variations in the 'receiving' and decoding unit - the human sensory system as well as the mind as the decoder and, well, enjoyer of sound. 

 

I'm not privileging anything, I'm arguing that we need to stop privileging the objective measurement over the subjective experience. Objective experience is by itself absolutely meaningless. For instance: you look at frequency graphs. They don't say anything unless you start correlating them with a particular experience ("See, this and that IEM sounds less rolled off in the highs".). You can have the most accurately measured frequency response, but if 'rolled off highs' means something different to you and me there's absolutely no point talking about it. 

 

What I argued for is a conversation about that experience of music, for example with a standardized hardware and sound source. If you do that, you'll quickly find that people have vastly different ways of describing their experience, and I would suspect (my original argument) that they also actually perceive it differently. That's what I meant when I described different types of listening. 

Even if our goal for a scientific description is to be accurate in our description of the hardware, we still have to attempt some form of standardization of the subjective experience. I would go further though and tackle the challenge of trying to inquire into the parameters of the experience itself. 

Ok, I think I see what you're getting at here. I think that attempting a common language for talking about the experience of listening to music could be interesting. As I type this though, I'm thinking that this language actually exists already, but that people on this forum (for the most part) aren't talking about the experience of music as much as they're talking about the experience of equipment. As you can read on different appreciation threads, you can take the same headphone and the same source and have a range of different descriptions (some say warm, some say analytical). Still if you read enough comments, there's generally convergence (with a few outliers). So although people hear things individually, the amount of variation is (I suspect) not all that huge.

I disagree with you about mechanical measurement being privileged on Head-Fi. As you might notice, this is the only forum on the entire site that does much with objective measurement at all. It's the subjective that has primacy. That's fine, for the most part, but I don't think it makes sense on the Sound Science forum.

Number fetishism, you've written that more than once. Any particular reason?

Quote:

Originally Posted by melomaniac 

not sure I agree with that - usually people are rather quick to disabuse themselves of sham notions once exposed to the medical truth. 

 

That's a change in belief and not in perception. Take an optical illusion, even if you know that it's an illusion, it's almost impossible not too see it. The illusion exists as an "error" in our brains perception of the world around us. In ways of perception it's allot harder to change our interpretations, even with objective data.

Our cognitive biases are sometimes just too strong to get around. 

A&B are the same grey.

That picture illustrates how difficult it can be to bypass instincts and be objective, but it doesn't mean it is impossible or not worth trying. It's the purpose of the brain to present sensory data in a way that is meaningful for the survival of a human being. If one diffuses his focus to a wide area, things will be interpreted as relative to each other, and that's all that is important because the subconscious contains memory to put all that together into a meaningful perception. It is like if you were scanning the environment for very specific things like things to eat or things to avoid, particular software would be preferable to simply perfect hardware and perfect data processing which would be a lot more complicated and cpu intensive than is really necessary.

If you focus your vision on single pixels, like the grey of tiles B and A, you are telling your brain you don't want to focus on relatives, and that allows you to see that the two greys are identical. This trick of focusing on only one very tiny point at any time is how you can see through visual illusions or even real life objects that utilize our instinctive optical mental fudging. Visual diffusion and centralization are two distinct ways for sight to function, passively and actively. When things are sensed passively, they can be affected in a million different ways by the ocean of the subconscious, usually accurately and beneficially if humans are in their natural environment, often wrong and detrimentally in unnatural environments. Music reproduction is artificial in many ways, with many new variables, and to listen with a good degree of accuracy requires one to not trigger the subconscious or passive way of listening. Might sound easy, but I think our current data on subjective tests of hardware shows just how difficult it might be to make into a science. Music appreciation of real life acoustic music is quite less artificial, has less but different kinds of variables, and should be a much simpler thing to solve, yet there are still many unsolved or unasked questions here. Not saying that we shouldn't try to make progress with subjective listening of hardware, but it is one level above plain psychoacoustics, a topic that is hardly scientific or standardized today.

Whoever denies the existence of subjective realities, has failed to recognize the foundations of his own Umwelt. Jakob von Uexküll

Quote:

Originally Posted by maverickronin 

 

Well, listening to music is supposed to be fun.  Its done for enjoyment.  You don't need much science just for that.  If you're deciding what to buy to help you enjoy your music then science will help you to pick what's best for your tastes and help you do it for cheaper.  I maintain that its better for your wallet to apply some basic skepticism and scientific knowledge to you decision making process but I can't say its morally necessary.

 

When you're writing a review, whether formal or informal, or offering recommendations its different.  If you're giving advice to other people you need to do your best to be objective.  The rigorousness of the methodology needs to be proportional to the potential differences between different pieces of gear.  Output transducers are known to be very obviously different from each other through both measurements and listening tests.  Therefore I can take a headphone review from a rabid cable believer with only a small grain or salt.  Amps measure slightly differently but are less often identifiable in blind tests and some amps have intentional colorations.  This means that claims about the "sound" of an amp should be taken with a few more grains of salt.  Any "review" of a cable needs extensive measurements and listening tests for me to take it seriously at all.

 

This basically boils down to the fact that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  In the same way that I will simply take someone's word that they own a dog I will simply take someone's word that a particular headphone is dark or bright until I come across disconfirming evidence.  If someone makes grand sweeping claims about the "sound" of an amp then maybe they're right.  To extend the pet analogy, some people have uncommon pets.  I have a parrot.  Here's some evidence.  If you question it, I can provide more on demand.  Someone claiming a boutique cable is sonicly superior to a cheap competently made cable (e.g. Monoprice) might as well be claiming they own a dragon or a unicorn.  I'm going to want pictures, x-rays, tissue sample, and DNA tests before I believe you.

 

All this is my rambling way of saying even hard-nosed skeptics like me don't always say, "you give me dbt or not true".

Top post, one of the best I have read on the forum, maverickronin.

Quote:

Originally Posted by upstateguy 

Maybe we need to define audiophile better.  To me it's the desire to hear and listen to the clearest, cleanest, most transparent rendition that i can obtain......

 

Audiophiles can exist at every monetary level of our hobby. 

 

Wouldn't you say that a person who is listening to internet radio from his laptop's headphone out and chooses a channel with a bitrate of 320 over one with 128, (because it sounds better) is an audiophile.

The subject of definitions is a bit tricky and there's not a good way to settle it in this case.  To begin with "audiophile" is a common word.  That's not to say that it appears often, but that it is non-technical and non-scientific term.  Words in technical and scientific vocabulary have very specific and tightly defined meanings.  They don't change or vary with usage very much and if someone uses such a term incorrectly then you can objectively tell them that they are wrong.  Common parlance is far more nebulous.  Even citing a dictionary will get you nowhere because dictionaries are descriptive, not proscriptive.  They tell you how people generally use the word and what they generally think it means when they say it.  There is no Council of the English Language which defines and enforces definitions.  If you and others who agree with you want to "take back" the meaning of the word from being associated with people who buy $7000 power cables then more power to you.  If the meaning shifts in the public consciousness then I'll use that label to describe myself.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Prog Rock Man 

Top post, one of the best I have read on the forum, maverickronin.
 

Thanks.

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by f.duane 

Look, I'm not arguing against objective measurement of the hardware - I'm saying that relying on that alone misses the point. Unless, of course, one is into some number fetishism. If the point is to get a particular listening experience, then we have to take into account the humongous variations in the 'receiving' and decoding unit - the human sensory system as well as the mind as the decoder and, well, enjoyer of sound. 

 

I'm not privileging anything, I'm arguing that we need to stop privileging the objective measurement over the subjective experience. Objective experience is by itself absolutely meaningless. For instance: you look at frequency graphs. They don't say anything unless you start correlating them with a particular experience ("See, this and that IEM sounds less rolled off in the highs".). You can have the most accurately measured frequency response, but if 'rolled off highs' means something different to you and me there's absolutely no point talking about it. 

 

What I argued for is a conversation about that experience of music, for example with a standardized hardware and sound source. If you do that, you'll quickly find that people have vastly different ways of describing their experience, and I would suspect (my original argument) that they also actually perceive it differently. That's what I meant when I described different types of listening. 

Even if our goal for a scientific description is to be accurate in our description of the hardware, we still have to attempt some form of standardization of the subjective experience. I would go further though and tackle the challenge of trying to inquire into the parameters of the experience itself.

 

The bolded part makes sense to me.  The problem is that its very difficult to do thoroughly and completely.  Cost of equipment is a major factor.

 

Fortunately we can do this informally if more places would take measurements like headroom does.  On their own the graphs are mildly useful.  If you've listened to a decent number of the headphones they have measured though, you can easily correlate your experiences with the graphs and get a feel for exactly what those numbers mean to you.  That makes it easy to evaluate anything new they measure based on your past experiences.

 

That's why I'm a big fan of measurements.  In a vacuum, a single graph is meaningless.  Comparing them all to each other and with you experiences is what makes them useful.  It requires a little thought.  I think most people who are entirely against measurements have almost no understanding of what the graphs actually represent and don't want to bother studying in order to make use of them.

Top post again maverickronin. Measurements and subjective reviews on their own mean no where near as much as when put together. For that reason Hifi Choice magazine's reviews are meaningful as they do both. They also say they include blind testing, but it is not ABX, just what do you think of this amp compared to others when you do not know which is which.

Quote:

Originally Posted by maverickronin 

The subject of definitions is a bit tricky and there's not a good way to settle it in this case.  To begin with "audiophile" is a common word.  That's not to say that it appears often, but that it is non-technical and non-scientific term.  Words in technical and scientific vocabulary have very specific and tightly defined meanings.  They don't change or vary with usage very much and if someone uses such a term incorrectly then you can objectively tell them that they are wrong.  Common parlance is far more nebulous.  Even citing a dictionary will get you nowhere because dictionaries are descriptive, not proscriptive.  They tell you how people generally use the word and what they generally think it means when they say it.  There is no Council of the English Language which defines and enforces definitions.  If you and others who agree with you want to "take back" the meaning of the word from being associated with people who buy $7000 power cables then more power to you.  If the meaning shifts in the public consciousness then I'll use that label to describe myself.

Thanks.

Hey Mav

What do you mean "take back" the meaning of the word?

I always thought that an audiophile was a discriminating listener.  A person who could appreciate high quality music when he heard it.  I never associated it with money.  I never thought you had to have money to be an audiophile, nor did I think being an audiophile required you to foolishly throw it away.

What's up?

USG

Quote:

Originally Posted by upstateguy 

Hey Mav

 

What do you mean "take back" the meaning of the word?

 

I always thought that an audiophile was a discriminating listener.  A person who could appreciate high quality music when he heard it.  I never associated it with money.  I never thought you had to have money to be an audiophile, nor did I think being an audiophile required you to foolishly throw it away.

 

What's up?

Maybe its an age thing?  I've got no clue how old you are but I'm in my mid twenties.  Maybe I mostly just hang out in different circles online and off.  Maybe its just an incredibly unlikely and skewed sample set which has in turn skewed my perceptions.  Whatever the cause is, outside of these kinds of circles, I mostly see the term "audiophile" used in the pejorative way I have described earlier.  Or maybe I'm gauging the the shift in meaning properly.  Right now my definition is #2 on Urban Dictionary and the #1 is irrelevant to this discussion.  You definition is #3, but both have rather mixed ratings so it would be fair to say that there is disagreement on the issue.  It should also be noted that I'm simply using Urban Dictionary as a barometer of what active 'net users think and not as an authoritative source about what the meaning should be.